The weird thing is this: The people I admire
style-wise don’t even write in my genre(s). In fact, some of it ain’t even
writing at all.

So when I think about people who've influence my
writing style, I’m not going to list the usual suspects: Stephen Brust, Fritz
Leiber, Robert E. Howard, Scott Lynch, blah blah blah. They all influenced my
subject matter, but not style.

So here I’m going to list the weird ones. The
ones you’d never guess. (Or maybe you would.)

These influences are all pretty dark. I’m really
not that grim. Honest. My grim streak is only about a mile wide, which isn't
wide at all if you got some perspective.

Cormac McCarthy. I’m not talking about The Road (though I liked it). I’m
talking about All the Pretty Horses
and Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men. And I’m also not
talking about how McCarthy ruined my ability (or my inclination) to use proper
punctuation or construct proper sentences. What I’m talking about—what I
learned from McCarthy—was that you could write brutal violent fiction
beautifully. And somehow that made it even more awful to witness, which is, of
course, the whole point in doing it in the first place.

Elmore Leonard. But not Elmore Leonard. I'm
talking about the audiobook of Mr.
Paradise read by Robert Forster. Now I love Elmore Leonard anyway, but this
is about Forster’s reading of Elmore Leonard. Forster reads as if he’s jaded as
fuck. Nothing on the page phases him. Not violence, not sex, not corruption,
nothing. He’s gonna deadpan it all in this almost-Brooklyn lilt through the
whole damn book. It was so goddamn cocky. So goddamn authentic. So when I wrote
The Glamour Thieves, it was always
Forster’s voice reading it back to me. What I learned from Forster's reading
was rhythm.

(Here's an aside: Austin doesn't sound like
Robert Forster. He sounds like Kevin Spacey when he's doing his gentle southern
drawl for no good reason at all except that Kevin Spacey's voice is the sound
of an elf's glamour.)

Gengoroh Tagame. Now before y’all go “Who?” and
start Googling this guy at work, STOP. Tagame is a Japanese writer/artist of bara, a subgenre of gay erotic manga (as
opposed to yaoi). A lot of his stuff
is some really disturbing sexual abuse and BDSM. Mix in some Japanese baggage
about gender and sexuality (even more baggage than we have in America, and
that’s saying something) and you get a story that ain't for most people. That
said, I love this stuff. It’s dirty and transgressive and every once in a while
dirty and transgressive is exactly what I need. And here's the huge plus:
Tagame’s men (and the men of bara in general) often challenge the gay physical
stereotype. They’re often muscular, sure, but just as often heavy-set and hairy.
They’re often young, sure, but just as often old and grizzled. They're an
acquired taste to love. Just like my orcs.

So yeah, all a bit grim. But I promise in book
three, The Burning Magus, despite it
all, JT and Austin get their HEA. Like I said, my grimdark only runs a mile
wide, not one inch more.

Howdy y'all. I'm Don Allmon and I got a debut book name of The Glamour Thieves. It’s the first of a
three book series called The Blue Unicorn.
It's a grim kind of fantasy, a cybernetic near-dystopia, a rough-edged romance
with few promises except for the ones that matter. Ain't nothin' worth earnin'
that wasn't hard won. Join in on the comments and win yourself some loot.

About The
Glamour Thieves

JT is an orc on the way up.
He’s got his own boutique robotics shop, high-end clientele, and deep-pocketed
investors. He’s even mentoring an orc teen who reminds him a bit too much of
himself back in the day.

Then
Austin shows up, and the elf’s got the same hard body and silver tongue as he
did two years ago when they used to be friends and might have been more. He’s
also got a stolen car to bribe JT to saying yes to one last scheme: stealing
the virtual intelligence called Blue Unicorn.

Soon
JT’s up to his tusks in trouble, and it ain’t just zombies and Chinese triads
threatening to tear his new life apart. Austin wants a second chance with
JT—this time as more than just a friend—and even the Blue Unicorn is trying to
play matchmaker.

In his night job, Don Allmon writes
science fiction, fantasy, and romance. In his day job, he’s an IT drone. He
holds a master of arts in English literature from the University of Kansas and
wrote his thesis on the influence of royal hunting culture on medieval werewolf
stories. He’s a fan of role-playing games, both video and tabletop. He has
lived all over from New York to San Francisco, but currently lives on the
prairies of Kansas with many animals.

To celebrate the release of The
Glamour Thieves, one lucky winner will receive a $20 Riptide gift card! Leave a comment with your contact info to
enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on September 2,
2017. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for followingthe tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!

Congrats, Don, and thanks for talking about who's influenced your style. It does seem pretty dark, but that's ok, I like how this is different with its worldbuilding, a mix of dystopia, urban, cyberpunk and fantastical creatures. - Purple Reader,TheWrote [at] aol [dot] com

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